


Guardian of the North

by Whedonista93



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: BAMF Sansa Stark, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:10:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whedonista93/pseuds/Whedonista93
Summary: Her Council does not trust the missives telling them where to tighten their security, but do as their queen commands. She trusts them because she knows only one person who would draw a bird on every message.





	Guardian of the North

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to the best beta ever! aggiepuff

“Your Grace, another missive.”

Sansa takes the parchment absently, and skims it. “Send an extra squad to the western borders.”

“Your Grace?”

“Our friend has not steered us wrong yet.”

“But we do not know who our _ friend _ is.”

“No,” Arya corrects, “_you _ don’t know who our friend is.”

“And you do?”

“Of course we do,” Sansa agrees with her sister.

“Then I do not understand why you do not see fit to share that information with your Council.”

Sansa fights the urge to roll her eyes. “Because it doesn’t matter. What other news?”

He sighs. “We’ve received more reports of people sighting the Hound along our borders.”

“And what nature are these sightings?”

He shrugs. “He kills the odd man here and there, but…”

Arya does roll her eyes. “So he’s making no more of a nuisance of himself than usual. Let him be.”

“My Lady?”

“She said leave him be,” Sansa says cooly, “and I agree.”

“Your Grace, I-”

“No. No matter what else he may be, Sandor Clegane poses no threat to me, and as such, poses no threat to my kingdom.” Sansa runs her fingers almost reverently over the little bird sketched roughly into the corner of the parchment.

* * *

“What did you say?” Sandor snarls at the man in front of him.

The man, about a foot shorter and only half as broad, sneers. “I _ said _ that if the fucking Ice Queen of the North got fucked through a mattress, maybe she wouldn’t be so damn frigid.”

A smile, nothing friendly about it, curls Sandor’s lips. “Aye. Thought that’s what I heard.” He draws his sword. “You really shouldn’t have said that.” Sandor runs his blade through the man’s throat before he can retort. His friends jump in then.

It’s down to Sandor and the last of the little group - only about a head shorter than Sandor, and just as broad - when the soldiers ride into the little village clearing. Sandor ignores them.

The other man doesn’t even notice them. “The North will never bow that wench.”

Sandor laughs harshly. “They already do. It’s just a few of you stubborn cunts holding out for no damn reason.”

The man lunges. Sandor lifts his sword to parry, but the man surprises him and changes direction at the last possible moment and gets a lucky shot at his ribs. Sandor roars and shoves him back with his left hand while swinging sword with his right, all but beheading the man in one stroke. He closes his eyes to collect himself. When he opens them, he’s half surrounded by soldiers pointing spears and swords at him.

He spots the Stark sigil and _ almost _relaxes. “Awh, come on lads, the cunts had it coming.”

A painfully familiar voice rings out behind the soldiers. “Stand down!”

The soldiers shift, hands loosening on their weapons, but none lower their spears until Sansa shoves her way through and plants herself between him and the soldiers.

“I said, stand down!” She repeats, more steel in her voice than he would have once suspected her of possessing - he knows better now.

The soldiers drop their weapons, albeit hesitantly.

One of them, a commander of sorts if he had to guess, dismounts his horse and steps toward Sansa. “Your Grace, do-”

“Do not dare,” Sansa nearly growls, “question me.”

“I would not dare, Your Grace, but the Hound is a dangerous man.”

“Sandor would never hurt me.” Sansa turns toward him, looks up at him solemnly. “Would you?”

He steps just far enough back to sheath his sword and drop to one knee in front of her, head bowed. “Never, Your Grace.”

He feels her hand on his face, and when he looks back up at her, she’s smiling. “Stand, please.”

He can’t quite hold back the wince as he obeys.

Her eyes fly wide. “You’re hurt!” Before he can stop her, her little hands are pushing right up against his side, heedless of the blood staining her dark sleeves.

“Just a scratch.”

She glares up at him, then starts snapping orders. He’s getting a bit light headed and doesn’t catch precisely what those orders are.

When he comes to, he’s been stripped bare and propped up in a steaming tub. He looks around hesitantly, and is met with Sansa’s glare. “Little Bird.”

“I don’t need you fighting everyone who has something unkind to say about me.”

Sandor grins darkly. “But it’s so much fun.”

“Regardless, ser-”

“I am still no lord or knight, Your Grace.”

Sansa scoffs. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I have it on good authority that the king ordered Clegane Keep be titled to you as reward for your efforts against the White Walkers. And I vividly recall my Council granting you lands in the North as thanks for your guardianship of my kingdom.”

Sandor’s jaw drops. “You knew…”

“That those missive came from you? Of course. I’m not stupid. Who else would draw a bird on them?”

“And you told the cunts on your Council?”

“My Council is made up of trustworthy men and women.” She bites her lip.

He narrows his eyes at the action.

Sansa sighs. “Fine, I didn’t tell them it was you sending them until today.”

“Why?”

Sansa shrugs and wrings her hands, which he now notices are covered in blood. He moves to sit up and feels a tug at his ribs. He looks down and sees neat row of stitches. “I have a poultice that will stave off infection,” Sansa says quietly, “but I thought it best you were clean first.”

Sandor grins. “So you threw me in a tub naked as a babe.”

Sansa blushes. “Well _ I _ didn’t.”

“It’s just you now, Little Bird.” He frowns. “People will talk, Your Grace. You alone in a room with a naked man in a tub.”

Sansa scoffs. “Let them talk.”

“Your Grace-”

“No. I can’t… not from you. Sansa or that damnable Little Bird, but no… no titles, _ please _.

He nods slowly. “As you wish.”

A scoff from the doorway draws his attention. Arya stands there, smirking. “Didn’t know you were capable of nice.”

Sandor sneers at her.

Arya rolls her eyes. “He’s right, though. Your Council, the soldiers, the villagers, they’re all talking about the queen alone in the inn with the Hound.”

Sansa sits up straight. “I don’t care.”

“You should,” Sandor says. “Ain’t ever gonna get a decent man to marry you if they think you’ve been fucking the likes of me.”

“You say that as if you think I would marry a decent man.”

“You could have any man.”

“And the only one I trust is arguing with me from his bath,” Sansa fires back.

Sandor’s eyes go wide.

Arya retreats, closing the door behind her.

Sansa’s eyes bore into his, shameless and sure. “I do not need a husband to maintain my power in the North. I do not need a husband who would use my position to better his. I do not need a husband who would try to take my power. Quite simply, I do not need a husband.”

Sandor opens and closes his mouth twice before any words manage to escape. “Then what the fuck are chittering on about?”

His breath leaves him when Sansa smiles. “Because husband or not, I do not wish to spend my life alone. You needn’t ever marry me, but I would have you stay by my side.”

He gapes.

“If you desire to do so, of course,” Sansa hastens to add.

He continues to stare.

She cocks her head curiously. “I never asked you to guard the North. Why have you?”

He sighs, knowing there’s no escaping her questions unless he wants to fight his way through the soldiers he has no doubt stand outside the inn. He answers quietly enough Sansa has to lean forward, strands of her red hair brushing the water. “I told you I wouldn’t let them hurt you. Then I did.”

She answers just as softly, reaching out and cupping his scarred cheek. “You weren’t there.”

“Precisely.”

“You’re here now.”

“Aye.”

“Are you going to leave me again?”

He lets his head drop, resting his forehead against hers. “No.”

“Good.”

She’s the one that closes the distance between them, pressing her lips to his.

He groans and snakes an arm around her waist, grins against her lips.

She pulls back abruptly. “Don’t you dare pull me into that tub!”

His grin widens. “Thought you didn’t care what people said.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t, but this dress is rather easier to get out of when it’s dry.”

He’s fairly certain his brain and heart stop. He growls. “Shouldn’t say such things, Little Bird.”

She smirks. “Why not?”

“Because I’m liable to take you up on them.”

“I rather hoped you would.”

He groans and pulls back, ducks his head under the water until he can’t breathe, then comes back up.

She’s still smirking at him.

He leans back and sighs, meets her eyes. “You may have no care what people say of you, but I will not have your name besmirched on my behalf… especially if it’s true. I’ll marry you in your bloody godswood before I take you to bed, Little Bird.”

Her smile is worth whatever indignities he’ll have to suffer for a wedding.

He doesn’t expect the wedding they have.

Sansa washes his hair, and scrubs his back, then stares unabashedly when he stands from the tub. Her hands linger when puts the poultice over his ribs and ties a bandage snugly over the neat line of stitches. She barely has the grace to blush as he dresses in the bundle Arya had popped back in long enough to throw at them. The trousers are a bit snug, but the tunic fits well enough. Sansa puts his boots on for him, admonishing him for almost pulling his stitches when he tries himself. He smiles softly down at the top of her head. She is no longer the girl he left in King’s Landing, so long ago. He already rather likes the steel-spined woman she’s become. He schools his expression before she looks up.

Sansa is far from the shy, empty-headed girl she was in King’s Landing, but she finds herself truly nervous, for the first time since seeing him in the village, as she stands from tying his boots.

“Sansa?”

She looks up.

“Most women blush when the see a man’s cock, not once he’s covered it up.”

Her face heats, blushing even more fiercely. Might as well get it over with. She turns and picks up the last item from the bundle Arya had tossed at her and then holds it out to Sandor silently.

He lifts it and the white unfurls all the way to the floor - the cloak he had covered her with that hateful day in Joffery’s court, now emblazoned with his house’s three dogs, painstakingly stitched by candlelight over countless late nights. He looks as if someone gut punched him and Sansa fidgets with her hands nervously.

“Little Bird,” he breathes it out, barely above a whisper. “All this time, you’ve kept this?”

She nods.

He reaches for her, snagging her sleeve loosely and using it to yank her into him. She goes willingly, until the cloak is scrunched up between them and his lips are on hers again. When they break apart for air, she smiles up at him.

He swings the cloak up around his shoulders and she slides her hand down his arm, laces their fingers together, and tugs him out of the room, out of the inn, and straight into the godswood. Arya is already there with a septon at her side.

Sandor quirks an eyebrow down at Sansa.

Arya snickers. “We both knew you wouldn’t turn her down.”

Sandor shakes his head and grumbles something along the lines of ‘presumptuous wenches’, but his tone is fond, so Sansa just smiles.

* * *

People talk.

Sansa’s Council throws an almighty fit. 

Sansa smiles, sharp, every inch the predator on her house sigil.

Sandor stands at her back.

One day, tales will be told of the fire-kissed Queen in the North and the Guardian, once burned by fire, ever at her back.


End file.
